I have an escort with:
Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Dual Heavy Cannons Mk.VII or VIII I think. Does about 330 damage
2 sets of Plasma Dual Heavy Cannons Mk.VI [DMG] that do about 300 or so damage.

I have a Transphasic torpedo launcher and a tactical console that buffs this up, but I might drop that for another good cannon at some point.

My aft weapons are a Mk.V mine and a pretty powerful aft phaser array. This is so if I can't finish a target head-on I can drop mines while I come about. The array weakens sheilds for the mines better than any turret, and it also has greater angles.

I am running fire at will x2 and I think this has saved my butt a number of times with mines and torpedoes. This is where the array really shines. It does about 160 damage and a turret about half that much. I'll hit fire at will and take out torpedoes and such with the front weapons, but really rely on that aft arc to get it done. It also helps with fighter clusters and fast movers.

So I toggle the 2 fire at wills. I may change that since it's more suitable for phaser array ships. Since I don't have any beam weapons I don't do "beam" on my tactical. I don't do the target subsystems ones because they seem somewhat useless to me. I might go for another tactical I, but I don't know how useful that actually is.

I thought about that too, but the energy cost is -10 for beam weapons. While the DHC is -12. I'm not sure if -2 is really that much to worry about, when the DHC does about 30 DPS more (before buffs, which would make the difference greater).

Although, not wasting a skill in favor of some burst damage is also a pro for dual beam bank. Might still consider it.

The -12 is not bad at all. the DHCs take twice as long for their firing cycle then the other cannons that do -10 so in the time frame where a cannon does -12 a dual cannon would do -20 since it does -10 per shot times 2.

This comment is getting more into the DC vs. DHC argument and to sum it up it comes down to crit vs. proc and in the case of AP proc is crit. DPS and Firing arc is the same

I am running fire at will x2 and I think this has saved my butt a number of times with mines and torpedoes. This is where the array really shines. It does about 160 damage and a turret about half that much. I'll hit fire at will and take out torpedoes and such with the front weapons, but really rely on that aft arc to get it done. It also helps with fighter clusters and fast movers.

Yes, turrets have the lowest DPS of all of the weapons, because their firing arc is 360%. People use turrets, because it uses less energy than beams, fire several shots per volley (chance for proc), and has a 360% firing arc (which means it will fire at a target the same time as your DHC, but also continue to keep your DPS as your target gets out of the firing arc of the DHC).

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodentmaster

I'm not following the terms... Are you saying the dual cannons are practically more effective than the DHCs?

DHC are considered "slower firing", because they only fire 2 bolts, as opposed to the Dual Cannon, which shoots 4 bolts.

Their cool down is still 2 seconds, I believe.

What does this mean?
1) For Dual Heavy Cannons:
- more damage per bolt
- possibly more damage per volley, as there is less of a chance that one of the pair of bolts will miss? Just guessing on that.

2) For Dual Cannons:
- more bolts means more chances that the proc will kick in
- stray bolts per volley possible? That is to say, instead of all 4 hitting your target from one Dual Cannon volley, you may get 2 out of the 4 to hit. Again, just guessing...probably wrong.
- because there are more bolts, it seems like you are firing longer, but, I think the cool down is still 2 seconds.

The Only time the proc of the dual cannons dont matter is with antiproton weapons because they are given +20 crit severity bonus instead. DHC receive a +10 Crit severity bonus and DC do not.

What that means is if you fire with an anitproton DC you will get +20 Crit severity and the equivalent dhc will get +30 crit severity. So if you are running anti protons DHC may be preferred.

If you are running phasers you may want that disable subsystems proc to hit more often to increase the chances. In this case DC is probably your better choice.

The other thing to consider is the enemy your fighting. The borg seem to be immune to the proc of phasers. in that case the +10 crit of the dhc seem to be prefered of the proc advantage of the DC since you can't phaser proc a borg and that the dc fire twice as often with -10 power vs once -12 of the dhc. in this case the phaser dhc is prefered over the dc against the borg. Unfortunately this gets more complicated with borg phaser weapons that have the additional radiation against borg proc on top of the standard weapons proc.

If we are still considering the borg and look at borg plasma weapons a DC will give a chance at a plasma and a borg radiation proc. Both will work against the borg but will be useless against other player because they are not borg and they are plasma resistant from fighting the borg.

Having many BOFF skills of the same type isn't too bad- say you have 2 cannon spreads. When you use one, a 45s-1m cooldown will start on that specific skill. But the second Cannon Spread would only run a 15s cooldown.

Agreed. In fact, I have many abilities that I have duplicates of specifically so I can spam that ability every 15 seconds.

But, as I had mentioned earlier, in a Tactical Escort Retrofit and all cannon build, I would have 3 Tactical Team I. Since they share the same cool down, I can only use 2 of the abilities at a time. The 3rd Tactical Team will always be in cool down.

You are correct that if you have no torpedoes and no beams, you are going to have one worthless BO slot. There is no avoiding this. Consider that this ship uses a layout that requires you to use at one torp launcher or beam array to get the best out of it..

The fleet escort's boff layout is more commensurate with the style of play you desire, and will give you slightly better survivability too.

That's lovely, but the OP's problem is that the ensign tactical slot (of which there are three) can only be Tactical Team if you are running an 'All Cannon Escort Build', as per the thread title. Since all the other ensign abilities rely on the use of beam or torpedo. Since it is pointless having more than 2 tac teams, one ensign slot is worthless on an 'all cannon' build.

As I said above, the solution is to run the fleet escort or to run a torp/beam in order to get some benefit from a different third tactical ensign slot.